An ongoing review of the Scottish Government’s child poverty targets “can’t be moving the goalposts”, the head of a leading charity has said.
Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville announced earlier this year the Government would look at the type of goals set in the binding 2031 targets which currently aim to reduce the level of relative child poverty to less than 10%.
Figures showed earlier this year the Government had missed an interim target on child poverty, with the rate sitting at 21% between 2022 and 2025.
Speaking as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) published a report suggesting the Government will struggle to meet its own targets, the charity’s associate director in Scotland Chris Birt said there could be a “risk that they could be taking their foot off the gas”.
🏴 This morning, we launched our 'Poverty in Scotland 2026' report, showing nearly 1 million people in Scotland are living in poverty, including around 1 in 5 children.
Alongside this, we published an explainer looking at the key role councils play in reducing poverty. pic.twitter.com/yNOWR2y8X6
— Joseph Rowntree Foundation (@jrf_uk) October 5, 2026
Speaking to the Press Association at the launch of the report in Edinburgh on Monday, Mr Birt said: “It’s not the numbers that are important, it’s the action.”
He added: “The worst thing they could possibly do is take a break – take a pause on action.
“They need to keep pushing while they do that review and they can’t be moving the goalposts.
“It has to be about something that restates their passion for improving the lives of children in Scotland.”
When he became First Minister in 2024, John Swinney made the eradication of child poverty his driving mission in office, but the JRF report said there was an “increasing disconnect” between Government rhetoric and action.
The report said: “We have consistently heard the First Minister describe eradicating poverty as his defining mission.
“This commitment is welcome, but there is an increasing disconnect between the Scottish Government’s rhetoric and the reality of life for families in poverty across Scotland.”
We are reviewing the targets because we want them to be meaningful in capturing all of the interventions that we make to eradicate child poverty
It called for ministers to bring forward a “new, much bolder and properly-funded plan to reduce poverty in Scotland”, and to reform local government funding to ensure that “services are best where they are needed the most”.
Speaking to PA on Monday at an event in Perth and Kinross, the First Minister said eradicating child poverty remained his Government’s “central mission”.
He added: “We are reviewing the targets because we want them to be meaningful in capturing all of the interventions that we make to eradicate child poverty.
“So, we want to make sure that, for example, housing support and childcare support and employment support and income support are all counting towards the measurement of how we lift children out of poverty.
“And, of course, the progress that we’re making is already keeping 100,000 children out of poverty as we speak.
“It’s resulting in lower levels of child poverty in Scotland than the rest of the United Kingdom and that progress will be central to how the Government takes forward our agenda to ensure that we succeed in our mission of eradicating child poverty.”
The First Minister added that the Government’s plan uses “whole family support” to boost the chances of young people, but he said: “We recognise there is more to be done and that’s why that provisions of eradicating child poverty is central to the Government’s programme that we set out to Parliament in September.”
According to the report, around 940,000 people in Scotland (17%) are in poverty, with 11% in deep poverty and 7% in very deep poverty.
Rates of poverty and deep poverty have only fallen by one percentage point between 2021-24 and 2020-25, and very deep poverty has shown little change, it said.
Around two in five people in poverty are in very deep poverty, meaning their incomes are well below the poverty line.
The poll of 3,381 adults found around half (49%) said they thought their local council is highly responsible for reducing poverty in their area.
Two-thirds (67%) said they thought their council received too little funding to provide the services needed in their area.
Despite widespread disaffection with councils, the survey found high levels of trust in key people working for and with them, such as teachers and nursery staff.
The report recommends the Scottish Government’s public service reforms should focus on reducing child poverty and local government finance should be overhauled to help make services best where they are needed the most.